What's best?
by Sasake
Summary: Holly is dumped outside Artemis's manor in the dead of night and... yeah really don't want to describe the whole point of the story in the title. But you might as well read it, it's only short, right?


At 7am, Butler discovered Holly Short lying on the front doorstep, shivering.

*****

"Jesus Christ, Artemis. What's happened to her?"

"I don't know. Quickly, get her into a bed in the medical bay, I'll be up in a few seconds. Go!" Artemis quickly and efficiently scrubbed up and sterilised himself. He took the elevator to Fowl Manor's well-equipped operating theatre, and proceeded to cross-examine the patient as thoroughly as possible.

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?" Butler's voice was tinged with anger, but it was more for frustration and worry that he raised his voice.

"Nothing is physically wrong with her at least. I mean look at her. She's perfectly healthy apart from the..." He bit his lip. "I don't know what to do here. I'd want to take her to a hospital except..."

"There's nothing wrong with her."

"Nothing I couldn't find will be found by anyone else."

"Exactly." He turned away from the patient and stared blankly at the wall for a few seconds. Then he picked up a surgical knife.

"Artemis!"

Normally he would have raised an eyebrow quizically, but instead he just explained himself quickly. "I want to see if there are any marks on her body. I'm going to cut her clothes off, that's all. You can help me."

Butler shook his head mutely.

"I know." Artemis quickly and efficiently cut through the LEP uniform's tough bodysuit, and in seconds Holly was down to her undergarments. These still covered most of her body, and he took a deep breath as he prepared to go through the next layer, with no idea of what he might see.

"Wait! What's that there?"

There was a small fold of paper tucked into a pocket over Holly's left breast. He gingerly nudged the minuscule golden Book aside, then removed it with a pair of surgical tweezers. He tore the note open, quickly read what was on it and crumpled it in his fist.

"Artemis?"

The boy's head tilted back as he stared at the ceiling. "Opal," he said, and then fell to his knees.

"Dead?" Foaly's voice came loud and panicked down the communicator.

" 'She's dead to you now'. That's what the note said."

"But she's not... she's not dead?"

"No, she's not dead. She's perfectly healthy."

A great sigh of relief came through the headset, a huge exhalation of released tension. "Then Holly's alive."

"..."

"Artemis? Holly's alive isn't she?"

"I – I'm sorry. You'd better come up here as fast as possible."

"Artemis!"

But the boy had already dropped the communicator.

The fairies took two hours to get there. In that time Artemis had moved Holly into a private bedroom and set her up comfortably. He then sat by her for the remaining hour and a half, waiting.

Foaly galloped across the lawn to Fowl manor and burst into the bedroom; Artemis had thoughtfully put her in a room on the ground floor. He was followed by Trouble Kelp and a team of LEP officers, along with an entire team of medical warlocks. Artemis stood up slowly, then quickly moved to block the path of the warlocks.

"Get out of the way, Mud Boy," snapped one of the fairies, but his bravado failed at the look Artemis gave him.

"What are you doing, Artemis, Foaly asked him gently. "We need to help her."

"You can't." Artemis sat down again, running a hand through his hair in a large, sweeping movement. "There's nothing you can do to help her. Let her have some peace."

"We can't know that until we know what's wrong with her, Artemis. I know you're trying to help but-"

"I know what's wrong with her."

"Well?"

"She's been mind-wiped."

There was silence for a few seconds, then Foaly laughed nervously. "Is that all? Artemis, we can do something about that. We've had the technology to undo mind-wipes almost since the LEP started using them. Too many unfortunate incidents with witnesses and miscarriages of justice, etc. She'll be fine, we just need to find out how much has been wiped." He brushed the human aside, shaking Holly awake. "Holly?"

She opened her eyes slowly as she woke, then looked at Foaly. She didn't speak.

"Holly? Speak to me Holly? Can you tell me the last thing you remember?"

Holly opened her mouth and closed it again, mouthing wordlessly. She tried this again, and again, and seemed to get more and more frustrated.

"Please Foaly, don't distress her. She can't speak."

Foaly stared at his stricken friend in horror. "What-"

"Her language centres have been wiped."

"But that's... impossible."

Suddenly Artemis had the centaur up against the wall, anger lending him strength. "Mind-wipe! Do you understand what that means? Did you even think about what that meant when you made it, even for a second? Her mind has been wiped! There's nothing left!" He let Foaly down; they were both breathing heavily. Artemis raised his fist, then let his hand fall pointlessly. "That's what she meant. Holly's dead. She's gone. Nothing left."

He sat down on the bed, and placed a hand on her shoulder. She gazed up at him but seemed to look straight through him. She opened and closed her mouth several times, but eventually gave up, her features screwing up in frustration.

Trouble Kelp had forced his way through the mass of bodies, and stood before the bed. "Gods... Foaly, tell me he isn't right. You must be able to do something about this?"

"I – I don't know. This is completely... Oh, Holly." Unable to speak, he broke down in tears. Artemis didn't turn from Holly, but his tears started to fall onto the sheets, leaving small wet patches. At that point the entire room unfroze, and all at once the assembled fairies began talking with raised voices. Medical arguments mixed with soldier's lingo, whilst Trouble tried to talk to Holly over the din. She switched her stare over to him, but only looked confused, and soon she too started to cry in distress.

"Out! Everybody out!" Butler had come into the room and had started pulling squabbling fairies out by the handful. Trouble wrenched his eyes away from Holly and joined in with his efforts, and the two of them quickly emptied the room. The door was soundproofed and soon peace descended once more.

"What are we going to do, Artemis?"

"I don't know. I really, really, don't know."

"Maybe – maybe if we – "

Artemis didn't even bother to respond. Just wanting something, no matter how hard you wanted it, couldn't do the impossible.

They stayed in silence for a while, all thinking furiously. Eventually Trouble spoke. "We'll have to get her back to Haven. Where she belongs. We can look after her there and... maybe something will show up."

Foaly stirred at his words. "Yeah. Yes, Commander, you're right. We'll get her into a proper hospital, and then we can..."

"Yes! That's what we'll do." He stood up and clapped Artemis on the shoulder. "We're going to take Holly back to Haven, Fowl." He hesitated, but then overrode his own qualms. "We'll make sure to tell you if there's any improvement."

Artemis frowned, and opened his mouth to protest, but closed it again. There was no good reason to hinder them, nothing he could do for her here, and doubtlessly the fairies could look after Holly better than he could. And she would be in her own home. _Even if she couldn't remember that._ He shook off the thought.

Trouble had ordered in a team of warlocks and they brought with them a stretcher trolley. Quickly they surrounded the bed, and prepared to lift her. Artemis reached out to touch Holly lightly on the arm, and smiled at her.

"Lift in 1, 2, 3!"

"Aagh!" Artemis yelled in pain as Holly gripped his arm tightly. The warlocks' lift was disrupted and they let go of her quickly.

Artemis stared at her. "Holly?"

Trouble frowned. "What's wrong?"

"She's holding onto the human, sir, sorry. We'll try again." The made to lift her once more, but she shrank away from their touch, shaking violently.

"Let go of her, Artemis, for Frond's sake!"

"I'm not! She's... Holly?"

Small bubbles of spit came from the side of Holly's mouth, but her eyes stared straight into his, clearly. She opened her mouth, and for a second he even thought she might speak, but she didn't. He took a tissue and wiped the fluid from her cheeks. She seemed to relax at his touch.

"Artemis?"

"She's staying here." He half expected the assembled fairies to explode, but his statement apparently wasn't as unexpected as he thought.

He looked at Foaly and saw that the Centaur was biting his own lip nervously. "Artemis, you said it yourself. That's not Holly any more." There was a sharp intake of breath from Trouble, but the centaur continued, "Holly's gone, Artemis. Let us look after her now."

"I... no. I want her to stay here." He smiled at her, and thought he saw her smiling back, just around the eyes.

"This really is impossible."

"Trouble, didn't you see it? She's completely calm around him, but try and take him away and,"

"Alright, Foaly, I saw! But we have no idea what's causing that! You expect me to let him keep her because of that?"

"'Let him keep her?' That's your emotions speaking, and no, I don't expect anything else at this time."

"Gods, Foaly. Why does he want to look after her? Why do you want to let him?"

"Maybe he wants the same thing as I do."

"Which is?"

"What's best for Holly."

**This is probably terrible. I normally keep my more spontaneous/darker ideas for fanfiction in my head but I thought this was mildly more interesting/plausible. It hasn't been proofread as I just finished writing it (at 3am) and I wanted to put it up before I went away for a few days, so it's probably full of mistakes. Please Read and Review, and don't go easy on me even if I did just make excuses for myself.**

**Oh, also, I wrote this whilst listening to Mogwai, who you should all go listen to right now. Youtube/spotify, whatever. Sine Wave is a pretty damn good song by them, but whatever really. **


End file.
